Straightforward, hard-to-answer-questions about the Bible/Christianity

Well, whether or not the snake was Satan, presumably we can conclude that whatever it was, it was perfect, just like Adam. (Of course, it defied God, but then so did Adam, and he was perfect, as we've established.)

Hi, ZenMonkey. You're right. My bad.----- I'm just arguing the principle that death isn't the end of a person's chance for salvation: I didn't intend for this to be specifically about the way Mormons do it or the practicality of the operation.The "salvation game," as you call it, is certainly a peculiar beast, isn't it? I have my own complaints against it: for instance, the requirements don't seem to make any sense, and the point of it all is obscure, to say the least.At any rate, I think I've made too big a deal of this already. I'll stop using up space on this thread now.Thanks.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hey Dr. Sing. (Emphasis mine)So how does one decide when to interpret a verse literally or non-literally? I thought the rules were to interpret literally except when it makes more sense to interpret otherwise.Are you a strict literalist?If so, then how in "god's green earth" can you assume literal truth when speaking about what, to me, is obvious allegory (Garden of Eden) versus when you're citing a verse (Is 14) which, to most, requires (relatively) much less mental gymnastics to take literally?Literal except when it suits your purpose, Dr. Sing?Edited by Apothecus, : punctuation

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"My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J.B.S Haldane 1892-1964

Hi, Dr Sing. If Adam's actions passed God's approval, why was Adam punished for them?You have God simultaneously approving and punishing the same action. There's an inherent contradiction there.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hey Hyroglyphx.I'm trying to determine where "free will" is supported, biblically speaking. Most verses I've looked at require the types of contortions of text which we see so often happen when a certain faith needs that text to support a preassumed conclusion. Free will seems to me to be a recent addition to literalist dogma in order to absolve any type of fallibility of God, no?Thus, even if God was architect and creator of everything seen and unseen (that includes sin, satan, everything, Dr. Sing, even if you don't necessarily believe it), humans' ability to exert free will lets God off the hook for appearing, shall we say, imperfect, no?Except this begs the question of why God would set herself up to appear weak. It's the thorn in the side of ID, which requires a God constantly tweaking what is shown to be an imperfect universe, and seems also to be the achilles heel of literalists, in general.Is God not perfect? Or is it all just scripted, from start to finish?

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"My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J.B.S Haldane 1892-1964

All quotes by Hyroglyphyx Although I do not in reality agree with this, for the sake of argument and theoretically (and to provide both us a common point of agreement) I will agree with you here. God decided to test Adam's faith by placing the tree in Adam's surroundings. (hereafter, I'll use just Adam to refer to him and his wife as a compound unit)Hereafter, I'm going to explicitly say if I agree or disagree and why. (maybe this will help the conversation?, let's see) I disagree.
And my reason:
1. Human nature entails understanding and reason
2. Adam was a human.
Therefore, Adam could both understand and reason. So.....a. Reason enables one to judge based on criteria. (A doctor uses his judgment to treat a disease by observing its symptoms) b. You wouldn't need to make judgment unless you have *more than one* choices to choose from. (If the only disease in the world was pneumonia, the doctor would not need to use his judgment for analysis and treatment of the disease. However, there are many diseases in the world with similar symptoms, so the doc needs to reason...) c. God told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. d. God told Adam the consequences of such an action. e. Being human, Adam understood the warning and only had to use his reason to make a decision. f. Until God told Adam NOT to eat the tree, Adam had only one choice, namely: eat the fruit. God's forbidding consumption of this fruit presents the second choice.At this point, Adam is faced with two choices. In response to the next quote, I will argue that Adam knew which choice was "good" and which one was "bad". I disagree.
Reason: Adam now has two choices before him and the sources of the choices are different. [Choice 1=Not eat fruit] is from God, [Choice 2: Eat it] is from God's enemy. Agree so far? I think you will.Now, million dollar question. How does Adam know which choice is good, choice 1 or choice 2? Adam knows the consequence of eating the fruit. Furthermore, the consequence was stated in two different fomrats by two different people. Ask me how? Number one format, God told him: You will lose your God-given privilege of being in a spiritual relationship with me. Number two format, God's enemy gave him: You will become like the gods...you will know good and evil.
Using reason then, any human will conclude that "knowing good and evil/becoming like God = losing a relationship with God " Adam did conclude this too. It stands to reason that breaking of a pure friendship between two people (God and Adam) who are in good terms is a BAD thing. And Adam knew all along while chewing the fruit that he was voluntarily cutting off the relationship/friendship between God and him to "know good and evil, become like God".______________________________________________________It will take some Bible study to understand the implications of "losing a relationship with God". But here are some Biblical implication that one cannot and shout not miss:1. Loss of sanctifying graceSanctifying GraceGrace has been divided by some theologians into two forms, Sanctifying Grace and Actual Grace. Sanctifying grace is the divine life that infuses our soul at justification (normatively at baptism) and, through the spirit of adoption, transforms the sinner into a holy child of God. As such we participate in the Divine Childship of Jesus Christ. With this divine childship comes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (who is the divine personification of the bond of love between God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ). Sanctifying grace is a permanent part of the soul as long as one does not reject one's adopted childship by committing a mortal sin, which severs one's bond to the Father. However, God is infinitely merciful, and sanctifying grace can always be restored to the penitent heart, normatively in the sacrament of reconciliation. Since the end and aim of all efficacious grace is directed to the production of sanctifying grace where it does not already exist, or to retain and increase it where it is already present, its excellence, dignity, and importance become immediately apparent; for holiness and the sonship of God depend solely upon the possession of sanctifying grace, wherefore it is frequently called simply grace without any qualifying word to accompany it as, for instance, in the phrases "to live in grace" or "to fall from grace".--Source
2. Loss of access to heaven
3. Marred image of God in Adam
4. Spiritual death of soul
5. Compounding of sin and temptation
6. No restoration of relationship unless God initiates it. In other words, man cannot successfully claim his sanctifying grace back with an apology. Man was never entitled to it in the first place. It was a free gift bestowed on man.
7. Original Sin--which is the sin we all inherit based on our physical *origin* in Adam"...this is the reaosn behind saying "because Adam sinne,d the entire human race fell"So what exactly does it mean when satan told Adam that eating it will make him know good and evil? It meant that Adam will gain an experiential knowledge of sin. Till then, adan never experienced sin , but satan did. And satan was offering the same experience to Adam. Experiential knowledge of good and bad. Right and wrong.______________________________________________________ It makes more sense to interpret otherwise here. And the reason I'm following this rule for Is 14 is threefold:1. Theme of Isaiah
2. Context of Isaiah
3. Selection of words in the chapterThe theme of Isaiah is "Spiritual redemption of nation Israel from bondage to sin through Jesus Christ"
The context is Israel's history.
Isaiah is known as the Messianic prophet. No one Biblical writer prophesied about Christ as much as him. The common string of all the pearls in the necklace is "Christ your redeemer will come to save you, you must repent of your sins and become one with Him". In order to explain this theme, Isaiah talks about Israel's past and present history: kings, battles, pharoah,s defeats, wilderness experiences, apostasy, idols etc etc to show how all along Israel has been rejecting God for the most part when He's been pursuing them. But soon the resolution of this problem is going to come, namely Christ. He is going to become a man and physically appear to them. Agree with me so far? Why is Christ coming? Is it to destroy the King of Babylon? Well, He could have just said "Okay, King of Babylon, you're done. Please die" Furthermore, why should only the King of Babylon be his archenemy, why not Egypt's pharoah? His archenemy that he's coming to destroy must be a supernatural being: satan.As far as selection of words go,12 How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!13 You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. [c]14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."falling from heaven, cast down to earth, make myself like the most High...relate to satan a lot better than earthly kings.Ah. I'm done for tonight. G'night everyone. We shall resume this discussion tomorrow. I just want to throw this out there: none of what I wrote above is from listening to preaching, its from my own Bible study. So, if you would like to defame it, defame me, it has nothing to do with "being brainwashed by biased Christian preachers preaching the same thing over and over again"G'night. Edited by Dr. Sing, : syntax and spellingEdited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

So, may I ask you a question. Who created Windows XP? You have two choices: 1. Microsoft. 2. God.That was not a trick question. And I know you know the answer is Microsoft. What "all things were made by Him" means is "all things that exist/happen pass His permission before they do" Obviously, God doesn't work for Microsoft! But the fact that Windows XP exists means that God approved Microsoft company's Windows XP before time and let it happen during time" In the same fashion, God permitted the sinful nature which Adam bought form satan to enter the world. Now, I'm not saying that God liked Adam's idea. No. God permits both things He agrees with and doesn't agree with. I'm saying Adam's idea could not have happened unless God permitted it to. What do you say Dr. Apothecus?Okay, I'm really going to bed now. Edited by Dr. Sing, : spellings and suchEdited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

indeed... However from what I read in the Bible it makes your god an evil tyrant or at the least too stupid to see his own Actions

quote:

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Genesis 3:5

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For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil

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quote:

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Genesis 3:22

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And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever

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These two passages prove Adam and Eve did not understand the difference between good and evil. They could not possibly understand that what God said is the right thing to do and what the serpent said is the wrong thing to do.What does this say about your god?Before you shoot back with "well god created them" You need to realize that is irrelevant as they would also be unable to understand that is goodEdited by DC85, : spelling

It's long been my contention that in this particular story it was the serpent who told the truth and God that was lying. Just my take on it.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John Lydon

And, according to your theological beliefs, he already knew the results of this test, yes? Kind of like leaving a child alone with a loaded gun when you are absolutely certain that he'll use it to shoot himself? I'm not following you. Couldn't he just have not eaten the fruit anyway?I've never stood on one leg while singing The Star-Spangled Banner. I have the choice not to do that, even though God has never explicitly forbidden me to do it. But without knowing the difference between good and evil, right? God did not say that, nor could Adam have understood him as meaning that. After all, that's just your metaphorical interpretation of the Bible --- but how did Adam know that God's word should not be taken literally? How was he meant to know which bits of the book of Genesis were meant to be taken as literal truth and which bits as fanciful allegory? He, after all, did not have a stalwart Biblical literalist such as yourself on hand to explain to him that some of it doesn't actually mean what it looks like it means.If only you had been there to explain to him that you can't take the word of God at face value, then maybe you'd have averted the Fall. As it was, that role was left up to the Serpent, and I'm sure that he didn't do nearly such a good job of it as you'd have done. This seems evident to those of us who know the difference between good and evil.---Your use of "good and bad" rather than "good and evil" introduces a certain ambiguity. Are you suggesting that Adam's sin lay in doing what was disadvantageous --- in doing something that was not good for him? You seem to be equivocating between the terms.If so, I should like again to ask, what price Adam the perfect man? Do perfect men do things that are simultaneously stupid and contrary to the will of God?If so, I must have met a lot of perfect people ...

Freewill is discussed in the NT and it is implied in the OT, but I would agree that one has to do some mental gymnastics in attempt to reconcile predestination vs freewill, as they seem to contradict at times. Yes, exactly my point. If God ultimately is in control of everything, then he would reasonably be responsible for how anything turns out, especially if he knows what will happen before it happens.That also brings up another question: If you know what is going to happen before it happens, how can you also have freewill? The Judeo-Christian God appears no different to me than any other god pagan god in human history insofar that the concept was created to explain the unexplainable and to attribute a moral precept in to life.

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"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston

Ahh, of all words, why did I pick "approval" here!? What I mean is "permission". I'm sorry for the ambiguity. English is not my first language, so I often have trouble communicating thoughts. I'm working on it. Thank you for pointing this out, I appreciate it.But the idea is that of permission. Lets say a Muslim guy falls in love with a Hindu woman and they both want to marry. Traditional Muslims usually do not marry from other religions. The parents of the young man do not approve of the wedding but they permit their son to marry this Hindu woman because they want to please their son and honor his heart's desire. They do not approve whats he's doing but permit him to do it anyway. Similarly, God permitted the entry of sin into the world but did not approve it. Suppose Adam resisted the devil and never sinned, who would you have given the applause to? God or Adam? I think you'll say Adam. I would give Adam all the credit. We all would agree that Adam was very brave, gallant, and intelligent, right? However, when Adam messes up, we blame God for it and Adam has nothing whatsoever to do with it??? And the question tells us that you do not understand the concept of freewill. Why? We are talking about an intelligent man, no?For all your sarcasm, Dr A, Adam didn't need me to help him out. He had intelligence, and that's often enough to understand simple sentences and ideas. If I told you strictly not to do X, what would you infer? Obviously, that doing X will make me angry, correct? Why was it different with Adam? Was he mentally challenged??
God told Adam, don't do X, therefore Adam knew that doing X will make God angry. How can you still justify Adam willingness to make God angry?___________________________________________ Yes, there is a whopper of a difference between "bad" and "evil". In this context, I use the word evil to denote sin, whereas the word bad to denote something BAD. Bad as in-- loss of friendship between God and Adam is BAD, its a sad thing, its not desirable, its not pleasing, its not good, God doesn't like it, its just BAD in the word's most basic, simple sense.You're right when you think that Adam didn't know what sin/evil was. But you're wrong when you think he didn't know what BAD was. I'm sure that there weresome fruit that Adam liked better than others and some he didn't like as much--which he would classify as BAD in his mind (who know,s maybe he hated pears---he would classify them as BAD). It didn't take first-hand experience of sin for Adam to have classified some fruit or flower to be BAD. Kids do it all the time. They say some things are good and some are bad even if they never murdered or plagiarized or understood what these crimes mean. We all have an inborn knowledge of knowing the good and the BAD.

But your interpretation of the Bible is not simple. If I tell you: "If you eat cyanide, you will surely die", who in their right mind would interpret this as meaning: "If you eat cyanide you will survive but I will no longer be friends with you"? That depends on whether I interpret it as a command or advice. If you say "You should fly to London by British Airways, because they're cheaper", and someone else says "No, Virgin Atlantic are cheaper, fly with them", then I wouldn't suppose that the second person was your enemy or that following their advice would make you angry. OK. So is a high-cholesterol diet. We wouldn't find someone morally culpable for eating a hamburger.But, fair enough, that's what you mean by "bad". Which leads me back to the original question, slightly modified. If Adam was "perfect", why didn't he avoid doing something which, according to you, he knew was bad for him?

And also. Why do you feel that you need to support your case with stuff you make up? Since we're in the Faith and Belief forum, you need to support your statements with actual Bible references, not Stuff That I Think Would Be Good If It Were In Here Somewhere.Sure, God throws down on Adam after A&E taste the Forbidden Fruit. But where does it say he warned Adam that he'd be awfully peaved if Adam didn't do what he was told? What he tells Adam is that Adam will go belly up in his tank if he doesn't do what he's told. God doesn't say, "You'll feel an estrangement from fellowship with me and no longer experience my divine presence directly, a state that can be thought of as spiritual death." He says death, and that's all. Which despite all your protestations, Adam wouldn't understand anyway. Sure, if he's human he can reason. (Well, some human beings can.) But you can't reason about concepts of which you have no experience and which have no context for you. As someone posted earlier, to Adam "You will die" would have about as much meaning as "Eat of that fruit and you'll find the derivitive of that function. See if you don't."

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John Lydon

I have to admit, Dr. Sing, that yours is a opinion I've never come across.So is there a measure of "time" before which an event happens in which god "sees" the unfolding of possible futures and then decides which she will permit? I was under the impression that god is all knowing, and thus would also know which possible future she would permit, no?Would not god have known exactly everything that would occur, (including what would happen to "perfect" Adam due to the Tree, or how Bill Gates would steal the Windows idea from Steve Jobs, etc, etc ad infinitum) forever, before time existed? Thus this idea of "permitting" this or that sort of fails at the outset, doesn't it? And along with it fails the concept of free will.Can you see where this sort of thinking gets the literalist in a bit of trouble? What you're proposing is that god does not have previous knowledge of future events, and thus you relegate her to merely the level of the ancient Greek or Trojan gods, Quetzalcoatl or any other pagan deity in whom you purport not to believe. In your biblical anthropomorphic lampoons, god is "angry" when something her subjects do displeases her, when she should have known from the beginning of time this would happen. Then and only then does she inflict punishment for these transgressions. Why couldn't she have "nipped it in the bud" and not allowed them to happen at all?One word: theater. It makes for a good story, but also makes for a weak deity. This is what you, yourselves, do to your own god, and you don't even realize you're doing it.Thanks for the title, although it may surprise you how many prissy folk will object to referring to a lowly pharmacist as "Dr." even when he holds that very degree.Have a good one. p.s. In response to your forthcoming comment about my over-complicating things: you're over-simplifying things.

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"My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J.B.S Haldane 1892-1964